Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Enhanced interrogations

If you follow the news at all you have heard about the witch-hunt in regards to "enhanced interrogations". I have heard of all the major things that are, according to the White House, cruel. Rush brought up something today which is not a new idea but still a good one. When deciding whether something is needed ask yourself if your family was in danger from someone and the person being questioned had information that could save them how far would you go. Some would say that this goes too far and the government has the responsibility to use reasonable methods for extracting information. I disagree with this idea. I once heard Justice Scalia making a point that I think speaks directly to this issue. I wish I could find a text of the speech so I could get it perfect but I will get the basics of it. The discussion was on a case where new information came out after a person had been found innocent of a brutal rape. This new information and the fact that the person could not be tried again prompted the father of the victim to kill the rapist. Scalia argued that the government had taken away our rights to defend ourselves and our communities. The idea that we are all familiar with now is that the justice system will be impartial and do a better job that the average citizen. In this case the justice system had failed miserably to do its job of protecting the community and this is why it is a good thing we have jury nullification for this man that should not be put in jail. The justice system had failed him so he was forced to into vigilantism. Great point Justice Scalia. ;-)Now putting that into perspective, we the people have charged the government or more specifically the CIA to defend us from attacks carried out by foreigners. If it was YOUR family that commuted every day across a bridge that was the next target of terrorists how far would you go to get information out of a man that you KNOW is part of that terrorist group. If you wouldn't go as far if not farther than the CIA has gone then I feel sorry for your family. For me, I think the interrogation scenes in the movie Inglourious basterds would not be going too far.